The Tale of Terror eBook

CHAPTER XI — AMERICAN TALES OF TERROR.

The vogue of Gothic story in America; the novels of
Charles Brockden Brown; his use of the “explained”
supernatural; his Godwinian theory; his construction
and style; Washington Irving’s genial tales
of terror; Hawthorne’s reticence and melancholy;
suggestions for eery stories in his notebooks; Twice-Told
Tales; Mosses from an Old Manse; The Scarlet
Letter; Hawthorne’s sympathetic insight
into character; The House of the Seven Gables,
and the ancestral curse; his half-credulous treatment
of the supernatural; unfinished stories; a contrast
of Hawthorne’s methods with those of Edgar Allan
Poe; A Manuscript found in a Bottle, the first
of Poe’s tales of terror; the skill of Poe illustrated
in Ligeia, The Fall of the House of Usher, The
Masque of the Red Death, and The Cash of Amontillado;
Poe’s psychology; his technique in The Pit
and the Pendulum and in his detective stories;
his influence; the art of Poe; his ideal in writing
a short story. Pp. 197-220.

CHAPTER XII — CONCLUSION.

The persistence of the tale of terror; the position
of the Gothic romance in the history of fiction; the
terrors of actual life in the Bronte’s novels;
sensational stories of Wilkie Collins, Le Fanu and
later authors; the element of terror in various types
of romance; experiments of living authors; the future
of the tale of terror. Pp 221-228.

INDEX. Pp. 229-241

CHAPTER I — INTRODUCTORY.

The history of the tale of terror is as old as the
history of man. Myths were created in the early
days of the race to account for sunrise and sunset,
storm-winds and thunder, the origin of the earth and
of mankind. The tales men told in the face of
these mysteries were naturally inspired by awe and
fear. The universal myth of a great flood is
perhaps the earliest tale of terror. During the
excavation of Nineveh in 1872, a Babylonian version
of the story, which forms part of the Gilgamesh epic,
was discovered in the library of King Ashurbanipal
(668-626 B.C.); and there are records of a much earlier
version, belonging to the year 1966 B.C. The
story of the Flood, as related on the eleventh tablet
of the Gilgamesh epic, abounds in supernatural terror.
To seek the gift of immortality from his ancestor,
Ut-napishtim, the hero undertakes a weary and perilous
journey. He passes the mountain guarded by a
scorpion man and woman, where the sun goes down; he
traverses a dark and dreadful road, where never man
trod, and at last crosses the waters of death.
During the deluge, which is predicted by his ancestor,
the gods themselves are stricken with fear: